PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX...

PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX 101. Sigh. Oh Larry Kudlow. When will you learn?

Today�s New York Times has a classic, class warfare argument from a Congressional Budget Office analysis from 2004 tax data that purports to show �Bush Tax Cuts Offer Most for Very Rich� but actually shows that the top 1 percent of income earners paid about 37 percent of all federal income taxes�a big jump from prior years.

And do you know why that is? Here's a hint. The top 1% saw their incomes jump by 18 percent in 2004, for a total of 53 percent of the income growth. That means one out of every two dollars in higher wages that year went to a member of the top percentile. And, it turns out, when you make all the money, you pay more of the taxes -- though not proportionately so. In 2004, the rich paid more because they made more. But the Bush tax cuts let them pay far less than they would've otherwise. Contrary to Kudlow's mendacious insinuation, the fact that they paid a high share of the income taxes has nothing to do with the fact that the lion share of the tax cuts went into their bank accounts. --Ezra Klein